New

Tickets are usually in this state when created from incoming e-mails.

Open

This is the default state for tickets assigned to queues and agents.

Pending reminder

After the pending time has expired, the ticket owner will receive a reminder email concerning the ticket. If the ticket is not locked, the reminder will be sent to all agents in the queue. Reminder tickets will only be sent out during business hours, and are repeatedly sent every 24 hours until the ticket state is changed by the agent. Time spent by the ticket in this status will still add towards the escalation time calculation.

Pending auto close-

Tickets in this status will be set to "Closed Unsuccessful" if the pending time has expired. Time spent by the ticket in this status will still add towards the escalation time calculation.

Pending auto close+

Tickets in this status will be set to "Closed Successful" if the pending time has expired. Time spent by the ticket in this status will still add towards the escalation time calculation.

Merged

This is the state for tickets that have been merged with other tickets.

Closed Successful

This is the end state for tickets that have been successfully resolved. Depending on your configuration, you may or may not be able to reopen closed tickets.

Closed Unsuccessful

This is the end state for tickets that have NOT been successfully resolved. Depending on your configuration, you may or may not be able to reopen closed tickets.

Customizing states

Every state has a name (state-name) and a type (state-type). Click on the States link on the Admin page and press the button "Add state" to create a new state. You can freely choose the name of a new state. The state types can not be changed via the web interface. The database has to be directly modified if you want to add new types or change existing names. The default state types should typically not be modified as this can yield unpredictable results. For instance, escalation calculations and the unlock feature are based on specific state types.

The name of an already existing state can be changed, or new states added through this screen. If the state "new" has been changed via the web interface, this change also has to be configured via the config file Kernel/Config.pm or via the SysConfig interface. The settings specified in the script below have to be modified to ensure that OTRS works with the changed state for "new".

Now it is possible to use the new state type you just created. After a state has been linked with this new state type, the OTRS configuration also has to be changed to ensure that the new state is usable. Just modify the following options via SysConfig:

Ticket priorities

OTRS comes with five default priority levels that can be modified via the "Priorities" link on the Admin page. When creating a customized list of priorities, please keep in mind that they are sorted alphabetically in the priority selection box in the user interface. Also, OTRS orders tickets by internal database IDs in the QueueView.

Note

As with other OTRS entities, priorities may not be deleted, only deactivated by setting the Valid option to invalid or invalid-temporarily.

Important

If a new priority was added or if an existing one was changed, you might also want to modify some values in SysConfig:

Ticket Responsibility & Ticket Watching

From OTRS 2.1 on, it is possible to assign a person as being responsible for a ticket, in addition to its owner. Moreover, all activities connected with the ticket can be watched by someone other than the ticket owner. These two functionalities are implemented with the TicketResponsible and TicketWatcher features, and facilitate the assignment of tasks and working within hierarchical team structures.

Ticket Responsibility

The ticket responsiblility feature facilitates the complete processing of a ticket by an agent other than the ticket owner. Thus an agent who has locked a ticket can pass it on to another agent, who is not the ticket owner, in order for
the second to respond to a customer request. After the request has been dealt with, the first agent can withdraw the ticket responsibility from the second agent.

With the configuration parameter Ticket::Responsible, the ticket responsibility feature can be activated. This will cause 3 new links to appear in the ticket activities menu of a zoomed ticket in the agent interface.

Ticket responsibility can be assigned by calling up the ticket content and clicking on the "Responsible" link in the ticket activities menu of a zoomed ticket in the agent interface (see the Figure below).

Figure: Changing the Responsibility of a ticket in its zoomed view.

After clicking on "Responsible", a pop-up dialog to change the responsibility of that ticket will open (see Figure below). This dialog can also be used to send a message to the new responsible agent.

Figure: Pop-up dialog to change a ticket's responsibility.

The list of all tickets for which an agent is responsible, can be accessed through the Responsible view of the OTRS agent interface, as soon as the ticket responsibility feature gets activated.

Ticket watching

From OTRS 2.1 on, select agents such as supervisors can watch certain tickets within the system without processing them, by using the TicketWatcher feature.

The TicketWatcher feature can be activated with the configuration parameter Ticket::Watcher which adds new links to your actions toolbar. Using Ticket::WatcherGroup, one or more user groups with permission to watch tickets can also be defined.

In order to watch a ticket, go to its zoomed view and click on the "Subscribe" link in the ticket activities menu (see Figure below).

Figure: Subscribing to watching a ticket in its zoomed view.

If you no longer want to watch a specific ticket, go to its zoomed view and click on the "Unsubscribe" link in the ticket activities menu (see Figure below).

Figure: Unsubscribing from watching a ticket in its zoomed view.

The list of all watched tickets can be accessed through the Watched view of the OTRS agent interface (see Figure below), as soon as the ticket watcher feature gets activated.